Not only was Dave's mother a great cook, but she had an amazing knack -- between the chopped liver and the strudel -- for solving his most difficult murder cases. Possibly because no detail, no matter how trivial, ever escaped that rattrap brain of hers. — When the Reverend Chuck Candy is found dead three days before Christmas, it's more than ill-timed murder. It's a complex case of religious fanaticism, illicit affairs and small-town bigotry. Dave -- an investigator for the public defender -- believes an innocent man is being framed. And he knows only one person in Mesa Grande, Colorado, can untangle the web of unlikely connections and sinister Mom.